Reconfiguring doctoral pedagogies
as de-centred dialogic practice:
developing repertoires of doctoral
scholarship
Dr David Hyatt
School of Education
University of Sheffield
Researcher Education & Development Conference, 18th Sept 2015
Traditional Modes of Supervision
A master/apprentice – expert/neophyte relationship
An authoritative figure dispensing factual information and
advice
However, Kamler and Thompson (2008) have argued the ‘advice’
genre positions the doctoral researcher as a ‘diminished
scholar’, potentially patronised or infantilised.
Janks and Ivanič (1992) many doctoral supervisory relationships
are characterised by an asymmetry of power-relations between
supervisor and student
What’s doctoral pedagogy for?
Training???? Transmission of expertise???
What’s doctoral pedagogy for?
Creating spaces / opportunities to challenge
assumptions and consider alternatives for
transformation
Paré (2010:113) argues the role of doctoral pedagogy
is in part an enculturation process
Induction into an academic discourse community
Reconfiguring doctoral pedagogy
• Construct more collaborative, egalitarian
relationships ‘to enhance the value placed on
individuals’ academic contributions and facilitate
the process of induction into the academic
discourse community, through a notion of critical
inclusion’ (Hyatt 2005a: 339)
• It advocates more collaborative supervisory
relations (Lee & Kamler 2008, Kamler 2008),
careful and reflexive supervision (Lee 2008), an
expansion of student research literacies (Green &
Lee, 2008)
• One where students are invited into the discourse
community (Swales 1990) through a critical
inclusion to, as Golde and Walker (2006) put it,
envisaging doctoral education as preparation of
the future stewards of the discipline.
• One where our job is not to ‘skill up’ learners but
to help them to develop the repertoire of a
successful member of the academic discourse
community or one which mirrors established
professional norms e.g. design, architecture,
engineering
Doctoral Repertoires
What comprises the repertoire of a successful
academic / researcher / research informed
practitioner? (if capacity-building and individual
development is the goal as opposed to summative
assessment hoop-jumping)
Doctoral Repertoires
• These will differ in different contexts/disciplines and in
transdisciplinary contexts (e.g. co-production)
• More than just a measurable list of competences
• In a super-diversity context, learners engage with a
broad variety of groups, networks and communities,
and their resources are consequently learned through a
wide variety of trajectories, tactics and technologies.
• These different learning modes lead to very different
degrees of knowledge whereby all of these resources in
a repertoire are distributed in a patchwork of
competencies, skills, dispositions, values, etc.
• The origins of repertoires are biographical, and
repertoires can in effect be seen as ‘indexical
biographies’. (Blommaert & Backus 2011)
What this view of doctoral pedagogy is not!
• A denial of expertise/experience or knowledge
• A denial of the psychological safety students desire in feeling their
supervisor is ‘expert’
• A ‘sink or swim’ abandonment of students but rather a structured
programme of learning that works from the student’s current state of
knowledge (constructivist?)
• A disregard of the importance of scholarship – rigour, subject
knowledge, originality, significance, credibility
• Disregard or neglect of the demands of professional practice
• A face-threat to the supervisor
Reconfiguring doctoral pedagogy – an example
• Students selected an article using a discursive analysis relevant to their own
doctoral research, and to circulate this article to the group for pre-reading.
• They selected a short piece of text that they would like to analyse
discursively as part of their research and to circulate the text to the rest of
the group so they had an opportunity to read/analyse the text.
• They were requested to analyse their text in detail, using a previously
discussed CDA framework – a draft article of mine
• They were also briefed to prepare a 10 minute informal presentation of
their analysis and to be prepared to offer their
analysis/evaluation/interpretation of the text. In the workshop, each
student critiqued the paper they had selected, describing to the group why
the approach taken was relevant for them. They then presented an analysis
of their text, after which the group offered their supplementary
thoughts/analysis of the text.
• The workshop concluded with a critique of the pre-circulated framework,
with the each member of the group discussing its bearing on their own
doctoral research, including ways in which it might be
supplemented/enhanced.
• This final element was a key aspect in the reconfiguration of relationships
between tutor and student.
Avenues to de-centred pedagogy and
the development of repertoires
• Creation of student-determined spaces for authentic
dialogue
• Diagnostic Assessment to complement Formative
Assessment
• Repeated presentation and defence of work
• Supervisors sharing draft work with supervisees
• Collaborative writing / Co-publication
• Questioning the discourse – should we be supervisors
or advisors (or mentors)? DTC’s or DDP’s? TNA’s or
Doctoral Development Analyses?
Concluding Thoughts
• A decentred pedagogy is one in which learners are
invited to appropriate and take ownership of their
learning and to develop their academic repertoire
• The doctoral process then becomes an invitation
to critical inclusion in the academic discourse
community